As erotic asphyxiation becomes more common, how can forensics experts tell the difference between consensual sex and assault, especially when the consequences are fatal?
Erotic asphyxiation, or breath play, is a sexual activity where one person intentionally cuts off their own or their partner’s air supply to provide a euphoric experience.
In Australia alone, the practice has become increasingly mainstream.
Research conducted by The Universities of Melbourne and Queensland reveals that over half of Australians aged 18 to 35 had choked or been choked by their partner during sex.
Performed consensually, sexual strangulation still carries serious health risks and has been linked to bruising, neck and throat pain, and nausea, with more serious effects involving unconsciousness, brain injury, seizures, stroke, and death.
While non-fatal choking, suffocation and strangulation, as a type of assault that commonly occurs in a family violence context, is widely criminalised across Australia, the line between consensual breath play and sexual assault can be blurry.
In 2018, 21-year-old British backpacker Grace Millane was murdered by a man she agreed to go on a date with. The man claimed Millane’s death was accidental, a result of consensual “rough sex”.
Since abolished as a defence to murder in the UK and Canada, the “rough sex defence” argues that a victim consented to violent sex, therefore their death was accidental, and as a result, the alleged offender is not guilty of their murder.
The defence is used by a defence team seeking to downgrade a murder charge to manslaughter.
Campaign group We Can’t Consent to This says the “rough sex defence” relates to broader issues regarding gendered violence and the normalisation of violence against women during sex attributable to the popularity of violent pornography.
Where obtaining forensic medical evidence from victim-survivors is often a central part of prosecuting sexual assault offences, the ability of experts to determine non-consent, and in cases of fatal erotic asphyxiation, an offender’s intent to kill, is complex.
By Ashleigh Wyss, a Master of Journalism student at the University of Melbourne.
To learn more about confronting subjects concerning sexual violence, listen to these podcast episodes on the LiSTNR app:
Crime Insiders | FORENSICS: What happens when you report a sexual assault?
RedHanded | Episode 104 – “Rough Sex” – The Murder of Grace Millane
The Briefing | Should Tinder be teaching us about consent?
Crime Insiders | FORENSICS: Erotic Asphyxiation & Murder